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The iPhone continued to transform the mobile phone industry in 2009, helping to move everyone away from simple voice phones and towards touch-friendly, powerful mobile computers. Palm's Pre and Pixi definitely echoed the iPhone's OS while adding innovations of their own, and Microsoft and RIM both responded to Apple's App Store with their own app marketplaces. As phones started to slide toward text-and-Web devices, carriers also picked up texting phones en masse. These devices, such as the LG EnV Touch VX11000, have full keyboards for heavy texting and light Web work with lower monthly fees than smartphones. It's clear: The era of mobile computing is definitely upon us.

HTC Touch Pro2 (Sprint)Best business smartphone; $349.99-$449.99 direct
Like the T-Mobile version of this phone, the Touch Pro2 is a powerful device with a huge touch screen and a roomy five-row keyboard. Sprint adds a standard headphone jack, a better speakerphone, and additional software to make this the king of Windows phones in the U.S.

Apple iPhone 3GS (AT&T)Best consumer smartphone; $199-$299 list
If you like apps or the Internet, you need the iPhone 3GS. Its processor and graphics chipset significantly boost the iPhone's speed for everything from Web browsing to games, cementing the iPhone's role as the nation's most flexible handheld computer. It still isn't the world's best phone, but is fulfilling Apple's mission to bring handheld computing
to the masses.

LG enV Touch VX11000 (Verizon Wireless)Best feature phone; $99-$409 direct
Although it looks like an iPhone clone, the enV Touch is actually not a smartphone, or even an iPhone-wannabe like the Samsung Instinct s30 on Sprint. Instead, the enV Touch is a flip handset in disguisea trick that works beautifully in its favor. It's also surprisingly slim, given its two-stage hinge and roomy QWERTY keyboard. Despite a few relatively
minor issues, the enV Touch is a top-notch choice for anyone who wants a stylish, do-it-all handset.

Palm Pre (Sprint)Most innovative new platform; $299.99-$549.99 direct
Palm has returned with the coolest handheld device we've seen in a long time. The Palm Pre has the same exhilarating sense of possibility as the iPhoneand it's even worth switching to Sprint for. The Pre is the start of something genuinely new: Palm's webOS, an innovative operating system that's benefited a lot by what the company has learned from Apple's smartphone successes.

Opera Mini 5 (Beta)Best mobile software; free
Chances are your cell phone needs a better Web browser. While smartphones often come with powerful software for accessing the Internet, feature phones are usually left in the lurch. Fortunately, Opera Software has covered that niche for years with the free Opera Mini. When I last looked at Opera Mini 4.2, the company had re-added RSS feed support and brought online U.S.-specific servers to compress and deliver pages more quickly. Opera Mini 5 (Beta) includes a thoroughly revamped interface, plus several key features that improve the browsing experience considerably.